Disk drive devices are information storage devices that use magnetic media to store data and a movable read/write magnetic head positioned over the magnetic media to selectively read data from and write data to the magnetic media.
Typically, referring to FIG. 1, a disk drive device contains a number of magnetic disks 6 attached to a common spindle motor for rotation. The surface of the magnetic disk 6 suspends an associated head arm assembly that includes a HGA 1. The HGA 1 is generally attached to and mounted on a drive arm 4. A voice coil motor (VCM) 5 is connected to the drive arm 4 for controlling the motion of the drive arm 4 and, in turn, controlling a magnetic head incorporated by a head slider 2 of the HGA 1 to position with reference to data tracks across the surface of the magnetic disk 6, thereby enabling the magnetic head to read data from or write data to the disk 6.
The HGA 1 serves to dynamically adjust the orientation of the head slider 2 to conform to the disk surface while the disk 6 is being spun by the spindle motor. More specifically, the HGA 1 generally comprises a suspension to load or suspend the head slider 2 thereon. The suspension includes a load beam, a base plate, a hinge and a flexure 3, all of which are assembled together. The load beam is connected to the base plate by the hinge, and the base plate is used to enhance structure stiffness of the whole HGA 1. The flexure 3 is made of flexible material and runs from the hinge to the load beam. One end of the load beam is mounted to the drive arm 4 by means of the base plate, and the other end of the load beam is attached to the flexure 3. The load beam biases the head slider toward the surface of the magnetic disk, while the flexure 3 provides flexibility for the head slider. A suspension tongue is provided at an end of the flexure to carry the head slider 2 thereon.
Referring to FIG. 2, conventionally, the head slider 2 typically has a sensor provided on a trailing surface 23 thereof for reading and writing data on the concentric data tracks of the disk 6, as is well known in the art. For electrical connection, the sensor provides several bonding pads 24 formed on the trailing surface 23 of the head slider 2, and the flexure 3 provides corresponding bonding pads 10 which are already common with sensor traces extending from a read/write electronic circuit (not shown) of the disk drive. The sensor traces serve to conduct signals between the sensor and the read/write electronic circuit for control. The bonding pads 24 of the sensor are respectively soldered or ultrasonically bonded with bonding pads 10 of the flexure 3 via solder or metal balls 8 thus implementing electrical connection therebetween. In addition, for achieving a strong physical bonding performance, epoxy adhesive 7 is applied to a top or mounting surface 22 of the head slider 2 facing the flexure 3 and opposite the air bearing surface 21 of the head slider 2, and the epoxy adhesive 7 bonds the mounting surface 22 of the head slider 2 to the flexure 3.
However, the method for interconnection the head slider 2 and the flexure 3 of the suspension described above is complicated. As is illustrated above, the head slider 2 is designed to be attached with the flexure 3 firstly by bonding solder or metal balls 8 between corresponding pads and secondly by applying epoxy adhesive 7 to fix the head slider 2 and the flexure 3 firmly. The electrical and mechanical connection between the head slider 2 and the flexure 3 are two separate assembly processes, which are time-consuming and laborious. Furthermore, the connection by epoxy adhesive has some inherent flaws, such as an elevated temperature is needed to cure the epoxy adhesive, while the elevated temperature will damage the sensor of the head slider.
At present, a more advanced typical interconnection between the head slider and the suspension has been introduced to solve the above problems. As shown in FIG. 3, the head slider 30 provides a plurality of slider electrical bonding pads 31, 31′ on the leading edge and a plurality of slider electrical bonding pads 32A-32D on the trailing edge opposite to the leading edge thereof, and the suspension 40 provides a plurality of corresponding flexure electrical bonding pads 41, 41′ and 42A-42D at its leading side and trailing side corresponding to the leading edge and the trailing edge of the head slider separately. The slider electrical bonding pads 31, 31′, 32A-32D are bonded to the respective flexure electrical bonding pads 41, 41′, 42A-42D via bonding solder or metal balls to establish mechanical and electrical interconnection between the head slider 30 and the suspension 40. In this connection way, however, the suspension 40 should provide extra electrical bonding pads 41, 41′ at the leading side so as to connect the head slider 2 with the suspension 40 at the leading side. Since the flexure bonding pads 41, 41′ at the leading side, trace patterns 43, and electrical bonding pads 42A-42D at the trailing side are separate parts, they can but be fabricated separately. When disposing the flexure bonding pads 41, 41′ onto the suspension 40 by photo process, a slight error in position alignment of the flexure bonding pads 41, 41′ will cause big variation of connection force, and cause the head slider's pitch static attitude and roll static attitude to vary following the variation of the connection position, and accordingly, the variation of pitch and roll static attitude will cause variation of slider flying height, which degrades flying performance of the head slider, as well as data reading/writing performance.
Hence, a need has arisen for providing means and method for attaching the head slider to the suspension in a single way to simplify the fabricating process and improve the head slider's flying performance.